Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich spotted dining together in San Francisco

An interior view of Seven Hills in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, March 23, 2017.

An interior view of Seven Hills in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, March 23, 2017.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Image
1of/32

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 32

An interior view of Seven Hills in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, March 23, 2017.

An interior view of Seven Hills in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, March 23, 2017.

Photo: Stephen Lam, Special To The Chronicle

Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich spotted dining together in San Francisco

1 / 32

Back to Gallery

NBA coaching legends and all-around good pals Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich were apparently spotted dining together in San Francisco on Friday night.

The Warriors and Spurs head coaches were noticed by fellow diner Kat So, who tweeted a photo of the pair at popular Italian restaurant Seven Hills. The pair looked casual, Pop sporting a T-shirt and enjoying a no-doubt very expensive bottle of wine.

Naturally, the meeting of the minds sparked speculation they were discussing Toronto's Kawhi Leonard. Leonard, who played for Popovich in San Antonio for seven seasons, will be the Warriors' foe in the NBA Finals.

Seven Hills, a tiny spot on Nob Hill, is one of Popovich's favorite California restaurants. In a recent ESPN feature about Popovich's famed wine acumen, the restaurant got a big shout-out:

"When the Cavaliers were in the 2015 Finals against the Warriors, a group of front-office staffers wanted a place to dine. One Cavs assistant had spent three seasons as a video coordinator with the Spurs and recommended Seven Hills, saying Popovich had taken the team there and loved it...

"Then word got out. 'We told so many people about it at the Finals, it was slammed with NBA folks throughout,' [ex-Cavaliers general manager David] Griffin says. That, of course, was the first of four consecutive Finals between the Cavs and Warriors. Now, Griffin says, 'You can't get [a table there] during an NBA event.'"

Popovich is no stranger to the Bay Area. During his years of military service with the Air Force in the 1970s, he was stationed in Sunnyvale, an assignment he rarely speaks of. There's a good reason for that: Sunnyvale's role in the Cold War was shrouded in secrecy.

Records show the military worked on the Gambit-3 spy satellite in Sunnyvale, a satellite that was "capable of taking high-resolution photographs from orbit at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were in a tense nuclear arms race," according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Although that was serious business, Popovich partook in some of the region's lighter fare as well. The ESPN feature tells of how Pop enjoyed touring Napa's wineries during his spare time, sparking a love of wine that has persisted his entire adult life.